Treat 


Sanitary     Entombment 


i 


BR  50  .T73 
Treat,  Charles  R. 
Sanitary  entombment 


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^UQM^ 


SANITARY  ENTOMBMENT. 


THE     IDEAL    DISPOSITION    OF    THE    DEAD.* 


ES  R.V^'i 


By  Rev.   Charles  R.V^fREAT,  of  New  York. 


It  is  a  strange  thing  that  the  time  should  have  come  to  attack 
the  churchyard  in  its  use  for  the  burial  of  the  dead  ;  but  it  is  really 
far  more  strange  that  the  churchyard  should  have  come  to  be  one 
of  man's  most  deadly  foes.  This,  however,  every  thoughtful  man 
will  now  have  to  admit  to  be  true,  and  this  will  make  easy  what 
otherwise  would  have  been  impossible  for  a  tender  or  reverent 
mind. 

As  a  general  statement,  it  will  sufifice  to  quote  the  words  with 
which  Lord  Beaconsfield  denounced  the  churchyard,  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  in  1880  :  "  What  is  called  '  God's  Acre  '  is  not  adapted 
to  the  times  in  which  we  live  or  to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  The 
graveyard  is  an  institution  prejudicial  to  the  public  health  ;  and 
the  health  of  the  people  ought  to  be  one  of  the  considerations  of 
a  statesman.  The  time  has  arrived  when  a  safer  disposition  of  the 
dead  should  be  instituted.'' 

In  view  of  such  a  statement,  and  of  many  more  that  come 
readily  to  mind  that  have  been  made  in  stronger  terms,  and  most 
of  all  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  agitation  against  the  churchyard 
has  been  maintained  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  it  is  amazing 
that  this  use  should  die  so  hard  ;  and,  as  we  survey  the  past,  it 
will  amaze  us  more,  to  be  compelled  to  confess,  that  the  church- 

*  Address   elaborately   illustrated  by  stereopticon,    before  the   American   Public 
Health  Association,  at  Brooklyn,   N.  Y.,   October  23d,   1889. 


Sanitarv  Entombment . 


yard  has  been  made  man's  foe  by  civilized  and  Christian  men! 
The  story  of  this  use  of  consecrated  ground  is  so  short  that, 
although   famihar,  it  may   well  be  told  again. 

In  the  early  Christian  centuries,  as  in  the  centuries  preceding, 
among  men  of  all  religious  beliefs  and  practices,  the  conviction, 
both  instinctive  and  founded  on  experience,  prevailed,  that  the 
dead  should  not  be  brought  into  proximity  with  the  living. 
Accordingly  the  practice  definitely  demanded  by  the  "  Twelve 
Tables"  became  universal,  not  to  bury  within  a  "city  "  or  any 
group  of  human  habitations.  The  first  step  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion seems  to  have  been  taken  at  the  dying  request  of  the  first 
Christian  emperor,  who  was  interred  at  the  entrafnce  of  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles,  in  Constantinople.  The  tendency, 
however,  to  follow  this  example,  and  to  secure  similar  interment 
in  holy  earth,  was  stubbornly  resisted  ;  and  it  was  not  until  the 
latter  part  of  the  sixth  century  that  burials  were  permitted  within 
towns  or  cities,  and  it  was  not  until  the  eleventh  century  that 
burials  were  permitted  in  churches.  From  this  time  the  custom 
continued  without  notable  interference,  until  the  latter  part  of 
the  last  century.  Then,  in  that  era  of  tremendous  change,  the 
churchyard  did  not  escape.  In  Paris,  the  churchyard  of  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Innocents  was  first  condemned  in  the 
interest  of  the  public  health,  because  much  sickness  had  been 
traced  to  the  foul  stenches  that  rose  therefrom  ;  and  it  is  worthy 
of  special  notice,  as  indicating  the  extent  of  the  danger,  that  M. 
Thouret,  the  official  charged  with  the  duty  of  disinterring  the 
dead,  was  overcome  by  the  foul  air  that  he  was  compelled  to 
breathe,  and  barely  escaped  with  his  life  from  a  putrid  fever  that 
he  there  contracted.  A  little  later  the  grounds  about  the  churches 
of  St.  Germain  des  Pres  and  St.  Eustache  were  also  barred  from 
burial,  and  the  contents  of  their  graves  were  carried  to  the  quar- 
ries that  have  since  become  the  "  Catacombs "  of  Paris.  In 
Austria,  under  Joseph  II.,  the  ruler  of  such  unhappy  methods 
but  of  such  noble  aims  and  advanced  ideas,  the  burial  of  the  dead 
within  or  near  to  churches  was  prohibited  by  law,  and  this  was 
such  an  honest  enactment  that  neither  rank  nor  wealth  could 
evade   it. 

In  England,  unhappily,  the  progress  of  this  reform  was  not  so 
rapid.  Bishop  Latimer  had  soundly  said,  in  a  discourse  upon  the 
restoration  to  life  of  the  widow's  son  at  Nain  :  "The  citizens  of 


Sanitar v  Entonibinent. 


5 


Nain  hadd  their  buryinge-place  withoute  the  citie,  which  no  doubt 
is  a  laudable  thinge.  And  I  do  marvel  that  London,  being  soe 
great  a  citie,  hath  not  a  burial-place  withoute.  For  no  doubte  it 
is  an  unwholesome  thinge  to  bury  within  the  citie,  especiallie  at 
such  time  when  there  be  great  sicknesses  and  many  die  together. 


■  CAMPO    SANTO,"    AMBULATUKY. 

1  think  verilie  that  many  taketh  his  death  in  St.  Paul's  church- 
yard. And  this  I  speak  of  experience,  for  I  myself,  when  I  have 
been  there  some  mornings,  to  heare  the  sermons,  have  felt  such 
an  unwholesome  and  ill-favoured  savour,  that  I  was  the  worse  for 
it  a  while  after,  and  I  think  no  lesse  but  it  is  the  occasion  of  great 
sicknesses  and  disease."     And  it  is  deserving  of  mention  that  Sir 


Sanitary  Eutonibnictit. 


Christopher  Wren  entreated  tlie  citizens  of  London,  in  rebuilding 
the  city  after  the  great  fire  of  1666,  to  put  an  end  to  the  pernicious 
practice  of  burying  within  their  churches  and  about  them,  and 
even  within  the  limits  of  their  city.  But  these  appeals,  and  many 
more  that  were  more  urgent  and  more  recent,  were  vain,  and  it  was 
not  until  nearly  the  middle  of  our  proud  century  that  England 
would  listen  to  the  reformer  of  this  crying  evil. 

In  this  country,  partly  because  there  were  few  places  of  large 
population,  and  partly  because  it  was  an  early  and  general  ten- 
dency to  use  cemeteries  rather  than  churches  and  the  grounds 
adjacent  to  them,  the  evils  of  earth-burial  did  not  manifest  them- 
selves so  soon  or  in  so  marked  a  manner  as  in  the  old  world.  But 
there  were  instances  enough  to  convince  the  most  incredulous 
that  a  radical  change  must  be  made.  Dr.  Ackerly,  writing  in 
1822,  thus  describes  the  condition  of  the  burial-ground  connected 
with  Trinity  Church,  "New  York,  forty  years  before  :  "  During  the 
Revolutionary  War  this  ground  emitted  pestilential  vapors,  the 
recollection  of  which  is  not  obliterated  from  the  memory  of  a 
number  of  living  witnesses.'!  In  the  same  year  the  Covimcrcial 
Advertiser  published  an  article  in  reference  to  the  present  evils  of 
earth-burial  at  the  same  place,  in  which  it  was  said  :  "  It  will  be 
remembered  that  the  graveyard,  being  above  the  streets  on  the 
west  and  encompassed  by  a  massive  stone  wall,  and  the  east  side 
being  on  a  level  with  Broadway,  it  results  that  this  body  of  earth,. 
the  surface  of  which  has  no  declivity  to  carry  off  the  rain,  thus 
becomes  a  great  reservoir  of  contaminating  fluids  suspended 
above  the  adjacent  streets.  In  proof  of  this,  it  is  stated  that,  in 
a  house  in  Thames  Street,  springs  of  water  pouring  in  from  that 
ground  occasioned  the  removal  of  the  tenants  on  account  of  their 
exceeding  fetidness."  At  a  later  date  Dr.  Elisha  Harris  brought 
this  telling  indictment  against  the  same  place  of  interment : 
"  Trinity  churchyard  has  been  the  centre  of  a  very  fatal  prevalence 
of  cholera,  whenever  the  disease  has  occurred  as  an  endemic  near 
or  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  it.  Trinity  Place  west  of  it,  Rec- 
tor Street  on  its  border,  the  streets  west  of  Rector,  and  the  occu- 
pants of  the  neighboring  ofifices  and  commercial  houses  have 
suffered  severely  at  each  visitation  of  the  pest,  from  1832  to 
1854."  It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  foregoing  state- 
ments are  not  intended  to  make  the  impression  that  there  was  a 
worse  condition  at  the  churchyard  named  than  at  any  other.     The 


Sanitary  Entomb jiicnt. 


truth  is,  that  this  only  illustrates  what  was  universal  throughout 
the  city ;  and,  in  proof,  it  may  be  cited,  among  the  unsavory 
recollections  of  the  time,  that  the  sexton  of  the  "  Brick  Church," 
J3eekman  Street,  was  accustomed  to  caution  the  persons  standing 
aiear,  when   a  body  was  to  be  deposited   in  the  vaults,   saying: 


■'CAMl^O    SANTO,"    CLOISTKR    AND    CI.IMPSE    OV    CUURT. 


"Stand  on  one  side.  You  are  not  accustomed  to  such  smells!" 
And  the  sexton  of  the  Dutch  Cliurch  close  by  was  known  to  have 
said  that,  when  going  down  into  the  vaults,  the  candles  lost  their 
lustre,  arfd  that  the  air  was  "so  sour  and  pungent  that  it  stung 
liis  nose."  Naturally,  therefore,  it  was  noted  in  the  public  press: 
'"  This  being  the  case  with  all  the  vaults,  where  dead  bodies  are 


8  Sanitary  Entombment. 

deposited  and  subject  to  be  opened  at  all  seasons,  this  method  of 
disposing  of  the  remains  of  our  friends  is  at  the  least  an  unpleas- 
ant and  certainly  a  dangerous  one."  And  the  result  was  to  be 
expected,  that  the  Board  of  Health  should  utter  their  official 
protest  against  the  continuance  of  the  perilous  practice,  as  they 
did  in  1806:  "  Interment  of  dead  bodies  within  the  city  ought  to 
be  prohibited.  A  vast  mass  of  decaying  animal  matter,  produced 
by  the  superstition  of  interring  dead  bodies  near  the  churches, 
and  which  has  been  accumulating  for  a  long  time,  is  now  deposited 
in  many  of  the  most  populous  parts  of  the  city.  It  is  impossible 
that  such  a  quantity  of  animal  remains,  even  if  placed  at  the 
greatest  depth  of  interment  commonly  practised,  should  continue 
to  be  inoffensive  or  safe  !  " 

It  may  now  be  said  :  "  Yes,  this  is  all  true,  but  we  have 
changed  all  that !  We  no  longer  inter  our  dead  in  churchyards. 
or  burial-grounds  within  the  limits  of  cities.  We  have  provided 
cemeteries  at  great  distances  from  our  cities  and  large  centres  of 
population,  and  there  the  dead  can  do  no  harm." 

To  this  the  reply  is  easy  and  convincing  ;  that,  if  the  dead 
endanger  the  living  when  the  population  is  dense,  they  certainly 
also  endanger  them  when  the  population  is  sparse.  The  danger 
is  only  diluted.  It  still  exists,  and  it  ought  to  alarm  us  just 
as  truly  when  a  few  are  imperilled  as  when  many  are.  As  lovers 
of  our  kind,  as  claiming  to  be  humane,  we  can  no  more  be  indif- 
ferent to  the  danger  of  a  few  than  to  the  danger  of  many.  True 
philanthropy  has  no  sliding  scale  by  which  to  gauge  her  gifts. 
And  if  the  evils  of  earth-burial  issue  from  the  fact  that  a  lifeless, 
body  is  buried  in  the  earth,  then  these  are  not  escaped  and  can- 
not be,  unless  the  dead  are  buried  at  such  a  distance  from  the 
living  that  the  living  can  never  come  into  contact  with  the  earth 
in  which  they  lie,  or  breathe  the  air  or  drink  the  water  which  they 
pollute.  Therefore,  the  question,  as  to  the  effect  upon  human 
health  of  our  cemeteries,  can  be  considered  settled  in  the  case  of 
all  that  are  not  remote  from  the  habitations  or  the  approach  of 
men  ;  and  such  cemeteries,  as  we  know,  are  few,  and  they  are  not 
the  cemeteries  which  lie  upon  the  borders  of  our  great  cities. 

To  strengthen  this  general  position  it  will  be  sufficient  to  quote 
the  familiar  but  weighty  assertion  of  Sir  Henry  Tiiompson  :  "  No' 
dead  body  is  ever  placed  in  the  soil  without  polluting  the  earth,, 
the  air,  and  the  water  above  it  and  about  it  "  ;  and  the  tcstimon)r 


Sanitary  Entombnunt. 


of  Dr.  Holland,  who  speaks  as  the  opponent  of  this  reform  and 
the  antagonist  of  Sir  Henry  Thompson,  that  the  best  situated 
cemeteries  may  be  so  mismanaged  as  to  become  unsafe  ;  that 
cemeteries  should  not  be  too  near  dwellings  ;  that  they  should 
not  be  overcrowded  ;  that  the  soakage  from  them  should  be  care- 


"  CAMl'O    SANTO,"    ANGLE    OF    CLOISTER. 


fully  guarded  against ;  and  that  wells  near  burial-grounds  are  unfit 
sources  of  drinking  water ;  and  the  declaration  of  the  French 
Academy  of  Medicine,  that  the  cemeteries  of  Pere-la-Chaise, 
Montmartrc,  and  Montparnasse,  once  suburban  now  intramural, 
are  the  cause  of  .serious  disorders  of  the  head  and  throat  and 
lungs,  that  result  in  the  loss  of  many  lives  ;  and  to  note  the  ex- 


lO  Sanitary  Eutovibiiioit. 

pericnce  of  Brooklyn,  half-girdled  with  graves,  of  which  the 
editor  of  THE  SANITARIAN  does  not  hesitate  to  assert  :  "  Ty- 
phoid-fever is,  taking  one  year  with  another,  increasingly  preva- 
lent in  Brooklyn,  and  it  is,  in  our  judgment,  probably  due  for  the 
most  part  to  sewage-pollution  of  the  intensest  and  most  loathsome 
kind — the  seepage  of  graveyards  !  " 

Thus  far  this  subject  has  been  treated  as  though  the  only  evil  in- 
fluence that  a  decomposing  body  could  exert  would  be  through  the 
poisonous  character  of  the  resultant  compounds.  Unhappily,  the 
stor}'  is  only  partly  told,  and  greater  dangers  remain  to  be  revealed. 

Within  a  few  years  it  has  become  unquestioned  that  some  of 
the  deadliest  diseases  that  attack  mankind  owe  their  origin  and 
propagation  to  living  organisms,  and  it  may  yet  appear  that  the 
field  of  their  operation  is  far  wider  than  we  now  think.  Not  to 
attempt  to  tell  all  that  has  been  ascertained,  it  will  be  sufficiently 
convincing  to  quote  from  Sir  Henry  Thompson's  utterance  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  in  1880:  "  I  state,  as  a  fact  of  the  highest 
importance,  that,  by  burial  in  earth,  we  effectively  provide — 
whatever  sanitary  precautions  are  taken  by  ventilation  and 
drainage,  whatever  disinfection  is  applied  after  contagion  has 
occurred — that  the  pestilential  germs,  which  have  destroyed  the 
body  in  question,  are  thus  so  treasured  and  protected  as  to 
propagate  and  multiply,  ready  to  reappear  and  work  like  ruin 
hereafter  for  others.  .  .  .  Beside  anthrax,  or  splenic-fever, 
spores  from  which  are  notoriously  brought  to  the  surface  from 
buried  animals  below  and  become  fatal  to  the  herds  feeding 
there,  it  is  now  almost  certain  that  malarious  diseases,  notably 
Roman-fever  and  even  tetanus,  are  due  to  bacteria  which  flourish 
in  the  soil  itself.  The  poisons  of  scarlet-fever,  enteric-fever  (ty- 
phoid), small-pox,  diphtheria,  and  malignant  cholera  are  undoubt- 
edly transmissible  through  earth  from  the  buried  body."  That 
the  burial  of  a  body  which  contains  the  seeds  of  zymotic  disease, 
is  simply  storing  them  for  future  reproduction  and  destruction,  is 
amply  proven  by  the  researches  of  Darwin  and  Pasteur  ;  of  whom 
the  former  has  shown  that  the  mould,  or  fertile  upper  layer  of  su- 
perficial soil,  has  largely  acquired  its  character  by  its  passage 
through  the  digestive  tract  of  earthworms,  and  the  latter,  that 
this  mould,  when  brought  by  this  agency  to  the  surface  from 
subjacent  soil  that  has  been  used  as  a  grave,  contains  the  specific 
germ  of  the  disease  that  has  destroyed  its  tenant. 


Sanitary  EjitoDibinent. 


1 1 


We  may  fitly  close  this  portion  of  the  discussion  with  the  con- 
clusion, so  strongly  stated  by  Dr.  James  M.  Kellar,  in  his  report 
to  the  session  of  the  American  Public  Health  Association,  at  St. 
Louis,  in  1884,  which  is  far  from  an  overstatement  of  the  truth: 
"  We  believe  that  the  horrid  practice  of  earth-burial  does  more 


CAMPO    SANTO,       FAMILY   COMPARTMENT. 


to  propagate  the  germs  of  disease  and  death,  and  to  spread  deso- 
lation and  pestilence  over  the  human  race  than  all  man's  ingenuity 
and  ignorance  in  every  other  custom." 

It  may  now  be  asked  :  "  Granting  that  these  evils  are  insepa- 
rable from  the  burial  of  the  dead  in  the  earth  or  in  tombs,  what 
is  the  remedy  ?     What  else  can  be  done  ?  " 


12  Sanitary  lintombuioit. 

To  this  question  not  many  answers  can  be  given,  because  the 
modes  of  disposing  of  the  dead  have  always  been  and  must  always 
be  few. 

Plainly,  no  such  novel  mode  as  casting  the  dead  into  the  sea 
will  be  generally  adopted.  Plainly,  also,  the  mode  of  the  Par- 
sees,  grounded  as  it  is  in  ancient,  if  not  original,  use — to  give  the 
dead  to  beasts  and  birds — will  not  become  universal.  And, 
plainly  also,  cremation  will  not  be  welcome  to  the  many,  free  as 
it  is  from  objection  on  the  score  of  public  health,  if  a  method 
equally  sanitary,  and  at  the  same  time  satisfactory  to  a  reverent 
and  tender  sentiment,  can  be  devised. 

The  inquiry,  then,  has  reached  its  limit.  For,  apart  from  the 
modes  that  have  just  been  named,  there  are  no  others  but  earth- 
burial  and  entombment  ;  and  earth-burial,  as  we  have  seen,  cannot 
be  made  sanitary  under  common  conditions.  Therefore,  if  the 
demands  of  affection  and  sanitation  are  both  to  be  met,  entomb- 
ment is  to  do  it,  or  it  cannot  be  done. 

Happily,  better  than  any  other  method  of  disposing  of  the 
dead  that  has  ever  been  devised,  entombment  has  met  the  demand 
of  affection.  Never  has  any  other  mode  so  commended  itself  to 
men  as  this.  There  may  have  been  at  times  a  general  adoption 
of  cremation,  and  there  may  have  been  a  general  prevalence  of 
earth-burial,  but  the  one  has  not  long  satisfied  the  sorrowing  sur- 
vivors, and  the  other  has  owed  its  beginning  and  continuance  to 
the  apparent  absence  of  alternative.  Wherever  the  living  have 
been  able,  and  the  dead  have  been  dearly  loved  or  highly  esteemed, 
the  tendency  to  entomb  and  not  to  bury  has  been  constantly 
manifested. 

To  call  attention  to  this  tendency  is  enough  to  prove  it,  so 
easily  accessible  is  the  evidence  and  so  familiar  is  its  operation  in 
the  human  heart.  The  most  natural  reference  will  be,  first,  to 
the  Mausoleum,  the  tomb  of  Mausolus,  that  was  erected  by  his 
sorrowing  Queen,  Artemisia,  at  Halicarnassus,  upon  the  /Egcan's 
eastern  shore  ;  and  that  became  at  once  one  of  the  few  great 
wonders  of  the  ancient  world.  This  was  intended  to  do  honor 
to  the  loved  and  illustrious  dead  ;  and  this  it  did,  as  no  grave  or 
pyre  could  do.  This  was  also  intended  to  protect  tlie  lifeless 
form  from  ruthless  robbery  and  reckless  profanation  ;  and  it  per- 
formed this  task  so  well  that,  for  near  two  thousand  years,  no 
human   eye  beheld   the  mortal   part  of  Mausolus  and  no  human 


Sanitary  Entombvient. 


13 


hand  disturbed  its  rest.  At  a  far  earlier  time,  Abraham,  the 
Father  of  the  Faithful,  while  he  illustrated  this  tendency  to  en- 
tomb the  dead,  also  offered  an  influential  example  to  all  who 
would  do  him  reverence,  as,  in  the  hour  of  his  great  sorrow,  he 
sought  the  seclusion  and  the  security  of  Machpelah's  cave  for  the 


-'  '^/wz/vf  ^-^J^^5^>^":^ 


"  CAMPO    SANTO,"    INNER    COURT. 

last  earthly  resting-place  of  his  beloved  wife.  There  he  buried 
Sarah  ;  there  he  and  his  son  and  his  son's  son  and  their  wives 
were  all  laid  to  rest,  and  the  place  of  their  repose  hath  not  been 
violated  even  at  this  distant  day.  To  this  constant  tendency 
constant  testimony  is  borne  by  the  massive  and  magnificent 
tombs   in   which    India  abounds,    the  tombs  and  pyramids   that 


14  Scniifary  Ji)itoinbvu'nt. 

make  marvellous  the  land  of  the  Nile,  the  tombs  that  stood  thick 
upon  the  Appian  Way  and  that  rose  superb  upon  the  Tiber's 
shore,  the  modern  use  to  which  the  Pantheon  is  put,  the  Pan- 
theon at  Paris  and  the  Crypt  of  the  Invalides,  the  Abbey  of 
Westminster  matchless  in  memorials,  the  sepulchres  within  the 
hills  that  gird  Jerusalem,  and  the  sepulchre  in  which  the  Naze- 
renc  was  gently  laid  when  His  agony  was  ended. 

It  remains  to  consider  whether  entombment  can  be  made 
sanitary  ;  if  it  can  be,  the  problem  is  solved,  for  entombment 
has  ever  been  the  best  that  the  living  could  do  for  their  dead, 
and,  with  the  added  advantage  of  promoting,  or  ceasing  to  be 
prejudicial  to,  the  public  health,  entombment  will  be  the  choice 
of  all  whom  cost  or  caprice  docs  not  deter. 

That  entombment  can  be  made  sanitary  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that,  in  countless  instances,  in  many  lands  and  through  long 
periods  of  time,  it  has  been  made  sanitary  by  the  ingenuity  of 
man  or  by  unassisted  nature  ;  and  it  is  also  evident  from  the  fact 
that  decomposition  and  disease  germs  are  the  dangers  to  be 
guarded  against,  and  that  against  these  both  ancient  and  modern 
science  have  been  able  to  guard.  Not  to  enumerate  all  the 
modes  that  have  been  chanced  upon  or  that  have  been  devised  by 
men,  there  are  two  that  have  been  notable  and  are  available  for 
modern  use — embalming  and  desiccation. 

It  is  a  delusion  to  imagine  that  embalming  is  a  lost  art  ;  that, 
like  some  other  marvels  of  the  ancient  time,  this  is  a  secret 
process  that  perished  with  the  people  that  employed  it.  Did  we 
desire  it,  we  could  embalm  our  princes  and  our  priests,  and  retain 
their  shrunken  similitudes  for  distant  coming  times  to  gaze  and 
gape  upon,  as  skilfully  as  they  who  practised  this  art  in  Eg}'pt's 
palmiest  days.  Nay,  it  is  doubtless  far  within  the  truth  to  claim 
that,  better  than  they  did  we  could  do  ;  and  we  are  actually 
apprised  of  better  methods  and  results  than  they  employed  or 
could  attain,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  we  shall  hear  of  better 
methods  still  in  the  near  future.  But  Egypt's  method, 
will  hardly  now  be  popular.  It  involves  too  much  mutilation  and 
too  much  transformation.  When  it  has  done  its  work  little  is  left 
but  bone  and  muscular  tissue,  and  these  are  so  transfused  with 
foreign  substances,  that  a  form  moulded  from  plastic  matter  or 
sculptured  from  stone  could  almost  as  truly  be  considered  that  of 
the  lamented  dead  as  this.     Moreover,  indefinite  preservation  of 


Sanitary  Entombment. 


15 


the  dead  is  not  desirable,  and  is  not  desired.  The  uses  to  which 
the  Egyptian  Pharaohs  and  their  humbler  subjects  have  been  put 
in  these  days  of  indelicacy  and  unscrupulousness  in  the  pursuit  of 
science  or  sordid  gain,  are  not  such  as  to  make  many  eager  to  be 
preserved  for  a  similar  disposition,  when  the  present  shall  have 
become  a  similarly  distant  past. 

Desiccation,  in  striking  contrast  with  embalming,  is  the  pro- 
cess of  nature  rather  than  of  art  ;  and  involves  no  mutilation  and 
no  substitution  of  foreign  substances  for  human  flesh  ;  and  does 
not  by  unnatural  means  preserve  the  semblance  of  the  human 
form  so  long  that  a  susceptible  sentiment  is  shocked  and  a 
due  return  of  material  humanity  to  the  elements    that  gave  it 


birth  prevented.  Desiccation  is  so  far  a  natural  process,  that  it 
seems  not  to  have  been  thought  of,  until  nature  had  done 
the  work  and  shown  the  product  ;  and  through  many  centuries, 
and  upon  an  extensive  scale,  nature  had  employed  the  process 
before  it  occurred  to  man  to  copy  her,  and  adopt  her  method  for 
the  disposition  of  his  dead. 

Wherever  the  air  that  enwrapped  the  lifeless  form  of  man  or 
beast  was  dry,  desiccation  anticipated  and  prevented  decomposi- 
tion. In  deserts,  upon  elevated  plains,  upon  the  slopes  of  lofty 
mountain  ranges,  to  which  the  winds  that  passed  their  summits 
bore  no  moisture,  the  dead  have  not  decayed,  but  have  dried 
undecomposed.     In  the  morgue  attached  to  the   Hospice  of  St. 


1 6  Sanitary  EntomOinoit. 

Bernard,  the  dead,  lifted  too  late  from  their  shroud  of  snow  and 
borne  thither  to  await  the  recognition  of  their  friends,  dry  and  do 
not  decay.  In  the  "  Catacombs  "  of  the  monastery  of  the  Capu- 
chins at  Palermo,  and  in  the  "  Bleikeller"  at  Bremen,  the  same 
phenomenon  has  appeared.  Even  Egypt  is  a  confirmation  of 
these  statements,  for  it  is  probable  that,  had  much  less  care  been 
taken  to  preserve  the  dead,  they  would  not  there  have  yielded  to 
decay  as  in  other  lands  ;  and  that  moisture  is  so  far  absent  from 
the  atmosphere  that  the  dead  would  have  been  preserved  from 
decay  by  desiccation  had  not  embalming  been  resorted  to.  Upon 
the  elevated  western  plains  of  this  continent,  the  bodies  of  beasts 
and  men,  by  thousands,  have  been  preserved  from  decomposition 
by  desiccation.  To  take  one  instance  out  of  many  that  might  be 
cited  :  A  cave  was  not  long  ago  discovered  high  up  among  the 
Sierra  Madre  Mountains  within  which  were  found,  where  they  had 
rested  undisturbed  for  many  years,  the  lifeless  figures  of  a  little 
aboriginal  household,  dried  and  undecayed.  Father,  mother,  son 
and  daughter,  one  by  one,  as  death  had  overtaken  them,  had  been 
brought  thither,  bound  so  as  to  keep  in  death  the  attitude  that 
had  marked  them  when  at  their  rest  in  life,  and  there  they  bore 
their  silent  but  impressive  witness  to  the  beneficent  action  of  the 
unmoist  air  that  had  stayed  decay  and  kept  them  innocuous 
to  the  living  that  survived  them.  In  Peru,  instances  of  this 
simple,  wholesome  process  abound  on  almost  every  side  ;  upon 
the  elevated  plains  and  heights,  as  also  beside  the  sea,  the  dead 
of  Inca  lineage,  with  the  lowliest  of  their  subjects,  are  found  in 
uncounted  numbers,  testifying  that  in  their  death  they  did  not 
injure  the  living,  because  desiccation  saved  them  from  decompo- 
sition ;  and  a  recent  traveller  has  vividly  described  the  scene  that 
a  battle-field  of  the  late  war  presents,  and  that  illustrates  the  same 
process,  where,  though  years  have  passed  since  the  last  harsh 
sound  of  strife  was  heard,  the  fierce  and  bitter  combatants,  still 
seem  eager  to  rush  to  conflict  or  to  sink  reluctant  into  the 
embrace  of  death.  And  all  these  instances  furnish  conclusive 
proof  that  decomposition  can  be  controlled,  and  that  its  loath- 
some and  unwholesome  transformations  can  be  prevented,  if  only 
the  simple  conditions  are  secured  that  have  already  so  extensively 
effected  this  result.  That  these  conditions  can  be  secured  no  one 
can  doubt  ;  for,  every  day,  in  almost  every  clime,  by  processes 
familiar  and  available  to  man,  the  atmosphere  has  moisture  added 


Sanitary  Entombvioit. 


17 


to  it  or  taken  from  it  ;  and  the  extraction  of  the  moisture  from  a 
portion  of  the  atmosphere  is  all  that  is  required  to  introduce  the 
process  of  Peruvian  desiccation  into  the  sepulchres  of  Chicago  or 
New  York. 

It  will  naturally  be  further  asked,  "  Is  this  all  that  has  been 
done  to  demonstrate  the  efficiency  and  availability  of  desiccation 
for  the  dead  ?  "  To  this  the  answer  would  be  sufficient  that  the 
evidence  that  has  been  adduced  is  ample  ;  and  that,  at  once,  in 
perfect  confidence  as  to  the  result,  mausoleums  might  be  erected, 
with  provision  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  moisture  from  the 
atmosphere  and  for  the  passage  of  the  desiccated  air  through  the 
sepulchres  in  which  the  dead  should  rest.  So  little  is  involved, 
and  so  much  has  been  accomplished  without  the  application  of 
any  human  skill,  that  it  seems  inevitable  that,  as  soon  as  the 
resources  of  modern  architecture  and  sanitary  science  are  drawn 


upon,  the  desired  result  will  be  at  once  attained.  But,  to  make 
assurance  doubly  sure,  several  carefully  conducted  experiments 
have  been  made,  under  the  supervision  of  the  directors  of  the 
New  Mausoleum  movement,  that  prove  that  the  conditions  of 
desiccation  can  be  controlled,  and  that  decomposition  can  be 
prevented,  that  where  it  has  begun  it  can  be  stayed,  and  that 
prolonged  preservation,  with  a  fair  approximation  to  the  appear- 
ance in  life,  can  be  made  sure,  for  the  recognition  of  absent 
friends,  for  transportation,  or  for  the  furtherance  of  the  ends  of 
justice,  although  through  the  operation  of  natural  laws  the  body 
will  ultimately  crumble  to  dust. 

When,  now,  it  is  added,  that  desiccation  has  been  ascertained 
to  be  an  efficient  agent  in  the  destruction  of  disease  germs,  as 
proved  by  the  experiments  of  Dr.  Sternberg,  of  the  Hoagland 
Laboratory,  and  by  the  investigations  of  other  experts,  enough 


1 8  Sanitary  Eiitonihiiicnt. 

seems  to  have  been  said  to  establish  the  truth  of  the  assertion, 
that  entombment  can  be  made  sanitary,  and  that,  therefore, 
entombment  offers  the  satisfactor}'  solution  of  the  problem,  how 
to  dispose  of  the  dead  so  as  to  do  no  violence  to  a  reverent  and 
tender  sentiment,  and  at  the  same  time  not  to  imperil  the  public 
health. 

The  proposition,  then,  soon  to  be  submitted  for  public 
,ip[)roval  is  this :  To  perpetuate  the  tomb,  the  preferred  de- 
pository of  the  dead  throughout  the  past ;  to  enlarge  it,  beautify 
it,  and  make  it  sanitary  ;  and  to  bring  it  within  the  reach  of 
all  who  would  thus  honor  and  care  for  their  dead.  Such  tombs 
can  be  inexpensive  and  plain  ;  and  it  seems  not  too  much  to 
hope  that  our  cities  will  soon  adopt  this  mode  of  disposing  of  the 
dead  that  depend  upon  the  public  care  for  burial,  and  that  the 
horrors  of  a  "Potter's  Field,"  of  which  it  cannot  be  divested, 
even  in  a  fair  and  sea-girt  isle,  may  be  forevermore  unknown  of 
men. 

All  these  structures,  however,  will  not  need  to  be  inexpensive 
and  plain.  Many  of  them,  as  the  rich  shall  lavish  their  wealth 
upon  them,  will  be  spacious  and  splendid,  as  no  tombs  of  earlier 
time  have  ever  been.  These  will  naturally  differ  in  design  and 
plan,  and  while  one  will  incline  to  one  order  of  architecture  an- 
other will  incline  to  another ;  one  will  incline  to  the  light  and 
graceful  style  of  the  Greeks,  another  to  the  substantial  and  endur- 
ing Roman  type,  another  to  the  still  more  firmly  built  and  time- 
defying  type  of  the  Egyptians,  another  to  the  rich  and  exquisitely 
decorative  Byzantine  style,  and  another  to  the  Gothic  type,  with 
its  suggestions  of  spiritual  aspiration  and  heaven-sent  consolation 
and  heaven-born  peace.  It  should  certainly  be  the  architect's 
study  to  avoid,  as  either  of  these  styles  is  adopted,  the  appearance 
of  edifices  with  familiar  and  established  secular  or  sacred  uses. 
These  must,  if  possible,  be  so  designed  as  to  speak  of  repose  and 
loving  care  and  undying  recollection,  and  should  appear  to  be 
homes  for  the  dead,  and  yet  temporary  habitations  in  which  they 
only  rest  until  the  resurrection. 

Perhaps  the  most  favored  style  will  be  that  of  the  "  Campo 
Santo,"  like  that  at  Pisa,  where  the  Holy  Field  lies  light  upon 
the  dead,  and  where  the  softened  sunshine  and  the  tempered  wind 
and  the  hushed  notes  of  happy  birds  and  the  sweet  seclusion  of 
the  spacious  and  graceful   Gothic  cloister,  with   its  memorials  of 


Sanitary  Entombment . 


19 


many  who  have  been  loved  and  lamented,  and  its  rare  pictorial 
teaching  of  the  life  to  come,  all  speak  soothingly  of  hope  and 
peace  and  comfort.  Such  a  "  Campo  Santo,"  modified  to  meet 
the  demands  of  modern  life  and  art,  might  well  be  one  of  the 
crowning  monuments  even  of  this  wondrously  achieving  age.  To 
what  a  grand  and  noble  consummation  would  it  seem  to  lead  the 
race  in  their  efforts  for  a  fitting  disposition  of  their  dead  !     And 

what  honor  would  it  re- 
flect upon  the  men  who 
should  erect  it  and  place 
it  at  the  command  of 
their  fellows,  in  due  re- 
gard for  what  both  health 

■VI 

|i'     and  heart  require  ! 

Within,  there  would 
be,  as  the  unit  of  con- 
struction, each  sepulchre  so  constructed  that  air,  from  xvJiich  a 
sufficient  portion  of  its  moisture  had  been  abstracted,  zvould  be  made 
to  enter,  and  to  unthdrazv,  laden  with  moisture  and  morbifc  matter, 
which  it  would  convey  to  a  separate  edifice,  xvJicre  a  furnace  zuould 
complete  the  sanitary  work  that  the  anJiydrous  air  had  begun,  and 
return  to  the  external  atmospJiere  nothing  that  zvould  be  noxious. 
Each  sepulchre  would  be  constructed  of  concrete,  and  would 
thus  be  without  seam  or  joint,  and  would  not  permit  the  escape 
of  any  noxious  matter  in  any  other  direction  than  through 
the  conduit  to  the  purifying  furnace.  Each  sepulchre,  closed  to 
all  except  official  inspection,  would  appear  to  provide  a  place 
of  seclusion  and  repose,  and  would  promise  the  most  perfect 
protection  against  intrusion  or  theft  that  can  be  found  on 
e-arth  ;  it  would  also  be  fitted  with  electrical  appliances  for  the 
instant  indication  of  the  return  of  consciousness  to  any  who  had 
been  prematurely  entombed.  A  "  Perpetual  Care-Fund  "  would 
insure  an  ample  income,  with  which  these,  and  every  other 
reverent  and  beneficent  provision,  would  be  made  permanent. 
In  arrangement  these  sepulchres  would  have  to  conform  to  the 
price  paid  and  the  taste  of  the  purchaser.  Many  would  be 
like  the  single  graves  that  thickly  ridge  portions  of  our  ceme- 
teries ;  many  more  would  be  grouped  together  after  the  sem- 
blance of  a  family-tomb,  as  in  the  illustration  ;  but  in  the 
general    impression,    in    the    surroundings    and   suggestions,   the 


20 


Sanitarv  Ejitombmeiit. 


resemblance  to  the  provisions  of  a  cemetery  would  go  no  farther. 
For  here,  there  could  be  no  burning  sun,  no  chilling  cold,  no  in- 
clement storm  ;  for  the  living,  as  they  should  pay  the  last  sad 
honor  to  the  dead,  or  in  any  subsequent  tribute  of  affection,  there 
could  be  no  exposure,  and  for  the  dead,  there  would  be  only  the 
constant  semblance  of  the  comfort,  the  quiet,  and  the  seclusion 
of  the  best-ordered  home.  Thus,  in  providing  the  utmost 
that  exacting  affection  and  sanitary  science  can  require,  and  in 
taxing  to  the  utmost  the  resources  of  art,  in  architecture,  in 
sculpture,  and  in  the  use  of  subdued  and  according  hues  and 
forms  for  appropriate  decoration,  these  "  Campo-Santos,"  or 
"  Mausoleums,"  or  "  Mansions  of  the  Dead,"  will  seem  to  have 
realized  the  ideal  disposition  of  the  mortal  remains  of  those  who 
depart  this  life. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  evident  that  the  present  modes  of  disposing 
of  the  dead  are  unscientific,  unwholesome,  repulsive,  and,  in  a 
word,  unworthy  of  this  enlightened  age. 

Oil  the  other  haiid,  it  is  apparent  that  the  Nezu  Mausoleum 
method  of  disposing  of  the  dead  affords  relief  from  all  these  obnox- 
ious features,  inasmuch  as  it  provides  for  the  perpetual  eare  of  the 
dead ;  protects  from  premature  interment ;  protects  the  dead  from 
theft ;  protects  the  liviiig  from  exposure,  while  paying  the  last  duty 
to  the  dead;  meets  the  demand  of  the  most  reverent  and  tender  sen- 
timent ;  meets  the  urgent  sanitary  demand  that  the  dead  shall  not 
endanger  the  living  ;  meets  the  medico-legal  demand  that  the  evidence 
of  crime  shall  not  be  destroyed ;  and  costs  less,  in  view  of  its  mani- 
fold advantages. 


tlbc  IRnicftcrbocFjer  press,  1Rcw  l!?orft 


